Time Flies
by triphazard
Summary: The saga of our favorite Rent characters...in preschool! R&R, please.


Disclaimer: Well, recognizable characters aren't mine. So there. Wish they were.

A/N: Awww… Little Rent toddlers, aren't they sweet? There might be more of this, we'll see, though probably not. *Hugs Little Mark* Poor, poor Mark. It's not that great, but it was fun to write. And preschoolers don't have the most eloquent dialogue… It seems like a pretty popular idea to write Rentfics for Christmas presents, but that's all right. Merry Christmas, Kris!

            Nineteen small children sat on the floor of Room B of Scarsdale's own Learning Land Preschool. Most of them sat in small groups, with the exception of the geeky blonde kid with glasses, who sat off by himself in a corner, a Hispanic girl with brand-new light-up Velcro shoes who kept moving from group to group, and a flamboyant curly haired girl who was dancing around the room, singing songs from various Broadway musicals. 

            "Children, settle down please," said a voice from the front of the room. All the children turned their attention to the voice, which was the teacher, except the singing girl, who was now tap dancing in her clumsy sneakers while singing "We're In The Money." 

            "Sweetie, what's your name?" the teacher asked.

            "Maureen," the girl replied.

            "Maureen, honey, could you please sit down and save your dancing for the playground?" Maureen scowled at the teacher, and continued her dancing.

            "No," she replied flatly. 

            "If you don't stop, I may have to put you in time out." This made Maureen scowl more, but she stopped. 

            "That's not fair!" she muttered under her breath and sat down to sulk. The teacher sighed and began her welcome.

            "Good morning, children. Welcome to Learning Land! I'm your teacher, Mrs. Bailey and this-" she gestured with her arms "-is your classroom." She proceeded to give them a tour of the room and point out everything they could play with. All of the kids were thinking, "Make this lady shut up and let's play!"

            About an hour later, Ms. Bailey announced that it was time for recess.

            "Alright kids, I want you to line up single file and walk quietly outside," She requested of the nineteen young children. It was, however, an impossible task for a group of four-year-olds. The phrase "go outside" triggers something in a preschooler's mind that limits their abilities to follow directions. The children went stampeding out the wood and Plexiglas™ door to the fenced-in freedom of the playground. The door closed heavily behind them, smacking the scrawny, blonde boy in the head, knocking him to the ground. The rest of the class promptly burst into fits of laughter.

            "Mark!" Ms. Bailey cried as she rushed over to the tiny boy on the floor. Mark sat up and looked fearfully first at Ms. Bailey, then at his laughing classmates. Ms. Bailey turned to the class, and said, in her calmly agitated voice,

            "Children, I don't think it's very nice of you to laugh at poor Marky. Why don't you all go outside now?" As preschoolers, they could not fight back against the voice of authority, so they stopped laughing and went outside. Mark looked longingly after them. He knew he was about to be fussed over by the overbearing Ms. Bailey. He held his breath and closed his eyes.

            "Marky, honey, are you alright? Sweetie, talk to me! Are you okay? I'm going to call your mommy!" Ms. Bailey said. Mark's eyes snapped open.

            "No!" he cried, "Not Mommy! I'm okay." Ms. Bailey looked shocked.

            "Okay, if you're sure, go on outside and play with the others." Mark scrambled up off the floor and trundled out the door. 

Outside, the kids had gone about the business of recess. A black boy wearing cheap, plastic sunglasses had brought Lemonade mix and bottles of water with him, and was setting up a lemonade stand next to the slide. Every time he turned his back, a taller African-American boy stole a cup of lemonade. Maureen was by the swings, showing a few girls her rendition of "Don't Tell Mama." One of the girls, a Hispanic girl named Mimi, got up and danced with her. This did not make Maureen happy.

            "Hey! You poopie face! I'm dancing!" she snapped at Mimi.

            "Yeah, I gonna dance too, you butt head!" Mimi retorted, earning a gasp from the gathering crowd. Maureen was not used to being insulted. Benny, the lemonade kid, sensing an business opportunity, grabbed a handful rocks from the ground and tried to sell them to the kids as tickets to the cat fight between Maureen and Mimi. Maureen was filling her tiny lungs with air to launch a full-fledged preschool-grade verbal assault when Ms. Bailey appeared on the scene.

            "Benny, what are you doing?" she asked. Benny smiled innocently.

            "I'm making money!" he replied.

            "Put those rocks down. Maureen, Mimi, were you two fighting?" 

            "Nu-uh!" Maureen answered and pointed at Mimi. "It was her. She was fightin'" Mimi glared at her and said,

            "Nu-uh! It was her! She started it!" 

            "Nu-uh!" Maureen replied.

            "Uh-huh!"

            "Nu-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nu-uh!"

"Girls, stop it!" Ms. Bailey intervened. "It takes two to fight. Now, apologize." 

"Sorry." Both girls mumbled at once. Satisfied, Ms. Bailey walked away. Realizing that Mimi had the same four-year-old-girl fighting mentality and she couldn't beat her, Maureen decided to pay her a compliment instead.

"Pretty shoes," she said innocently and wandered away. Mimi's shoes were indeed pretty, as they were the pink Velcro kind with light-up bottoms.

            While all of this was going on, Mark had quietly slipped outside and into the sandbox, where he now sat, all alone, picking up sand and watching it run through his sticky apple-juice fingers. 

            "Hi Marky," taunted a cruel voice behind him. Mark gulped. The voice, coming from a chubby blonde boy behind him, continued.

            "He scared, Tony!" The chubby boy laughed evilly. Tony, a skinny, dark-haired boy, replied,

            "Haha! We beat him up, Kev!" Mark tried to run, but the two bullies grabbed him. Ripping Mark's glasses from his face, Kev threw them out of the sandbox while Tony grabbed toddler-sized handfuls of sand and poured them into Mark's hair. Since Mark was a scrawny kid, it only took a light push from Kev to knock him to the ground, where both bullies began pounding on him with their tiny fists. A brawny, scruffy-looking boy from the older class interrupted their violent tangent by socking them both in the head. Angered, they turned around, and when they were confronted by this intimidating older "big kid," they turned and ran, leaving Mark crying in the sand. 

            "Hi, I'm Roger," the boy said, extending his hand. Mark took it and mumbled,

            "Mark. I'm Mark." Roger handed Mark his glasses and helped him stand up.

            "You okay?" he asked. Mark brushed sand off of his sweater.

            "Yeah," he replied. He was about to say something else when a little black girl named Joanne came storming up to him and Roger with Tony and Kev in tow. Immediately, she started yelling at Roger.

            "You hit these kids! These poor, weak kids, and you hit them! Say you're sorry!" She commanded. Roger looked at her, flabbergasted.

            "Them? Poor and weak? They beat up Mark! I'm not sorry!" he retorted. 

            "Well, you will be!" Joanne shouted at him.

            "No, I won't!"

            "Yes, you will!"

            "Nu-uh!"

            "Yes-huh!"

            "Nu-uh!"

            "Yes-huh!"

            "Kids, kids, please stop it!" cried Ms. Bailey. "It's time to go inside. Your parents should be here any minute." She began to walk away, and all the kids except Roger followed her like puppies. 

            "Hey, Mark!" Roger called after them. Mark turned around.

            "Bye bye!" Mark smiled, waved, and disappeared into the brick building.

  



End file.
